Pentecost 20B - "Open for Business"

Saint Mark 10:2-15

Some of the most embarrassing moments in my life have come for me when I have failed to mind my own business.  I can tell by the way some of you just sat bolt upright that it has been the same way for you.

You know what I mean.  It comes in those moments when we hear ourselves expressing an opinion that we had best kept to ourselves.  Those moments when we have heard ourselves say, “You know what you should have done...”  and immediately know that the person neither wanted or appreciated our feedback. 

Minding our own business fails come when we notice that the lights were on late at our usually early to bed neighbours and find ourselves wondering what is going on over there.

They come when there is a strange car seen night after night in front of another neighbour’s house and we get up to see someone walking to that car in “the wee small hours of the morning” and wondering if that person isn’t doing “the walk of shame.”

It comes when we express a strongly held belief and, having failed to “read the room,” discover that nobody within earshot shares our opinion.  These embarrassing moments can come when we have forgotten what we, hopefully, learned from our parents or teachers and failed to keep emotional or, worse yet, physical boundaries.

Not minding our own business is a sure way to find ourselves in trouble and it was a skill that seemed to be sorely lacking in the religious leaders of Jesus’ day.  They just weren’t very good at “minding their own business” sometimes with disastrous results. 

Witness their question: “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?”1

It was a loaded question to be sure, but it also was a cruel question. There were certainly people overhearing this little dust up who were divorced and ostracized because of it.  There were certainly people in the crowd who were never married, some were “childless cat ladies” others were people without children who were thought by the over opinionated not to have a real stake in their country.2 

There were certainly people listening in who were in abusive relationships that they could see their way clear to get out of. 

Besides, as Jesus deftly points out to those nosey religious leaders, the law of Moses did allow a man to divorce his wife, but their union was not based on love but a purely transactional relationship between their families. Social Scientists tell us:

Under normal circumstances in the world of Jesus, individuals really did not get married. Families did. One family offered a male, the other a female. Their wedding stood for the wedding of the larger extended families and symbolized the fusion of the honour of both families involved. It would be undertaken with a view to political and/or economic concerns.3

So, most marriages were arranged by the couples fathers not so much in the best interest of their children but in the interests of both family's financial stability.

Jesus isn’t interested in any of this.  Rather, it he suggests to the hardhearted religious leaders of his day that it might be well for them to mind their own business. That might be excellent advice for any hardhearted of us to heed too.  

Some churches have excluded the divorced from the reception of Communion even though no less of an authority that the Holy Father, Pope Francis, has said: “I have never refused the Eucharist to anyone, to anyone. I never, never refused the Eucharist. As a priest, that is. Never.” Pope Francis then added: “The problem is not the theological problem—the problem is the pastoral problem.”4

That is exactly how Jesus approaches it though, I doubt, he would have seen it as a problem except for the hardhearted who couldn’t seem to mind their own business.  What they were missing in trying to figure out on a purely legal basis whether divorce was permitted or not was the human element.  

People get hurt when families break up.  It’s hard on the couple and it’s especially hard on the children no matter how young or old they are to see their families — the one thing they expected to be a constant in their lives – fall apart.  It’s even hard on the extended family and friends.  Those in Jesus’ day, those in ours, who can’t seem to mind their own business must not be the ones that add insult to injury.

That may be the reason that Mark brings two seemingly disconnected stories together.  Divorced women especially in Jesus' day were marginalized and children were “of value primarily as the Near Eastern equivalent of Social Security.”5  They were had to provide for you in your old age.  They “had few rights and essentially no social status”6

and besides that, they were unruly.

My guess is that the children Mark was talking about were not as well behaved as the children of Saint Luke Academy are on Wednesday mornings in chapel.  And even they, on occasion, get a little wound up as my little presentations get drowned out by hyper-frenetic activity.  Fortunately, I have teachers to intervene but for the disciples it was different.

If you let yourself imagine the scene you can see the contrast.  There is Jesus and the religious leaders having a very, very, very serious discussion about matters of divorce, the family, and societal stability.

Meanwhile, in the back row there are the children being children.  They may have been talking. (Talking in church, how horrible!) They may have been wiggling and giggling at nothing in particular.  They may have been elbowing each other in the ribs or pulling the hair of the person in front of them.  And when the adults try to bring them closer to Jesus instead of spiriting them away for an Ice Cream cone it is all too much for the disciples who can no longer “mind their own business” and try to give them “the bums rush.”

Think about that for a moment.  Those disciples who had been with Jesus for a long time now had forgotten everything he had taught them!  They are trying to keep not only the little ones but their parents from getting close to Jesus!  They are setting up boundaries, the same kind of boundaries the religious ones were trying to set up between the married and divorced, now between Jesus and little children squirrelling around in their parents arms.

Jesus sees and takes those children up in his arms to remind all what his business has been all about.  It’s about inclusion.  Sometimes the church forgets that which is why we needed both stories today that are put before us in the Good Book.

It seems to me that it is especially important to hear these stories on the day when we celebrate the 64th anniversary of this building to remind us of what our business is.  They are there to remind us that buildings can be fortresses that keep people out or they can be 

welcoming places that invites people in.  

The strange stories we have before us this day when we are trying to celebrate what the church has been there to remind us of what the church must be.  We can no longer divide ourselves up into groups who are in and groups who are out.  We no longer have the luxury of being the biggest and best game in town.  

Sundays no longer belong just to us – we have to figure out how to share them with all kinds of different activities. We can no longer divide ourselves between the unmarried, the married, and the never will be married. We can no longer divide ourselves along the lines of orientation, or gender, or age.  We can no longer be about the business of building walls that divide and keep people out.

The stories we have before us today are there to remind us that “the Kingdom of God belongs to the broken and the broken-hearted. It belongs to the betrayed, the unfaithful, and the rejected. It belongs to the abused, the unwanted, and the incompatible. It belongs to the fooled and the foolish. The Kingdom of God belongs to those with hardened hearts and to those recovering from hard heartedness.”7  

Jesus' ministry belongs to us all, every one of use and it is our business to share it. 

May this be the business this church tends to this day and everyday into the future.

________________

1. Saint Mark 10:2.  (NRSV) [NRSV=The New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition]

2. Rachel Treisman, “JD Vance Went Viral for ‘cat Lady’ Comments. the Centuries-Old Trope Has a Long Tail,” NPR, July 29, 2024, https://www.npr.org/2024/07/29/nx-s1-5055616/jd-vance-childless-cat-lady-history.

3. Bruce J. Malina and Richard L. Rohrbaugh, Social Science Commentary on the Synoptic Gospels (Philadelphia, PA: Fortress Press, 2003), 240.

4. Mark  P. Shea, “I’d Like to Say: Stop Weaponizing the Eucharist,” Franciscan Media, February 23, 2024, https://www.franciscanmedia.org/st-anthony-messenger/may-2022/id-like-to-say-stop-weaponizing-the-eucharist/.

5. William H. Willimon, “Jesus Christ Is Lord, Therein Is Our Hope,” Pulpit Resource, Year B, 52, no. 4 (October 1, 2024): 3–5.

6.    Matt Skinner, “Commentary on Mark 10:2-16,” Working Preacher from Luther Seminary, November 11, 2020, https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/ordinary-27-2/commentary-on-mark-102-16-2.

7.    Amy Gopp, “Holy Union,”  Day 1, October 1, 2024, https://day1.org/weekly-broadcast/66eed19e6615fbbbf2000003/holy-union-rev-amy-gopp-mark-10-2-16-october-06-2024.